Demme's stage directing debut in 'Family Week'

Jonathan Demme, famous as director of "The Silence of the Lambs" but beloved for so many quality indie films, has made a strange, but strangely touching, choice for his stage-directing debut. He has attempted to resurrect "Family Week," a 2000 failure by Beth Henley, which the MCC Theater has given an exemplary, if still puzzling, revival.

Rosemarie DeWitt (Rachel in Demme's "Rachel Getting Married") has a lucid, trapped-behind-her-face quality as Claire. Her mother (the always empathetically complex Kathleen Chalfant), sister (Quincy Tyler Bernstine) and teen daughter (Sami Gayle, persuasive but with a voice that would annoy dogs) have traveled to help Claire. She is in a respected but reductive treatment center, where she has gone after the murder of her son.

It is hard to know what Henley feels about the place and the family, though we are relieved to have the Pulitzer-winning playwright ("Crimes of the Heart") move away from kooky eccentrics to confront genuine pain. Henley's message, alas, is less clear, but the relationships have a persuasively offbeat impact.

BOTTOM LINE: Henley's message is unclear and the therapy is simple-minded, but the relationships have an offbeat impact.

WHAT: "Family Week"

WHERE: Lucille Lortel Theatre, 121 Christopher St., Manhattan, 212-279-4200; mcctheater.org, $65

The essence of dude talk in "The Aliens" 

Young playwright Annie Baker just won a special citation from the New York Drama Critics Circle for her breakthrough season, which includes "The Aliens." Currently being given a sensitive production by director Sam Gold, "The Aliens" is a three-guy stoner play filled with unexpected moments. Michael Chernus, Erin Gann and, especially young Dane DeHaan capture the silence between the guy-talk with naked vulnerability, but I wish someone would revive her more complex earlier work, "Body Awareness."

BOTTOM LINE: Stoner guys, honest but less rich than Annie Baker's other work

WHAT: "The Aliens"

WHERE: Rattlestick Theatre, 224 Waverly Place, 212-868-4444; smarttix.com, $45

Buckley's cancer comedy, "White Lies"

For reasons left to herself and her accountant, invaluable diva Betty Buckley has chosen to play the pushy mother in "White's Lies," a shallow and obnoxious but slick - wait for this - cancer comedy by Ben Andron. Tuc Watkins plays her son, a womanizing lawyer made to feel guilty by his dying mother's wish for a grandchild. Director Bob Cline's production is technically fussy and emotionally smirky. Peter Scolari acts as if he is in mime school. The good Jimmy Ray Bennett is young enough to work again.

BOTTOM LINE: Find Betty Buckley a job, fast.

WHAT: "White's Lies"

WHERE: New World Stages, 340 W. 50th St., 212-239-6200; whitesliesonstage.com, $60-$75